Trump Regime Escalating Toughness at Home and Abroad
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)
Following Trump Syria pullout announcement, Pentagon terror-bombing escalated, according to sources in areas attacked - on the phony pretext of combating ISIS the US supports.
A Deir Ezzor resident said civilians in areas attacked by Pentagon warplanes “have no place to go or hide from the US bombardment of their villages.”
So-called Operation Roundup has been involved in terror-bombing residential areas along the Euphrates River near the Iraqi border since last November.
Attacks target hospitals, schools, mosques, other civilian sites, and vital infrastructure - part of what’s been ongoing since direct Pentagon involvement began in September 2014.
According to Al Jazeera, “(d)uring the final days of 2018, the US campaign bombed villages up and down the Euphrates, focusing primarily on Al Kashmah.”
“On New Year’s Eve, the bombs relentlessly assaulted Al Kashmah, leaving the village largely destroyed…”
Pentagon spokesman Danielle Covington lied, saying US policy dictates “the pace of our strikes against ISIS targets (sic) with careful consideration of their impact to civilians (sic),” adding:
“The increase in strikes in late December were selected specifically to degrade ISIS capabilities (sic) and were unrelated to any other variable.”
US terror-bombings indiscriminately massacre civilians. They’re all about turning large parts of Syria to rubble and weakening Assad, part of Washington’s failed regime change strategy.
Whether Pentagon forces stay or leave Syria, US-led terror-bombing will continue, perhaps escalate more than already. Conflict resolution is unattainable because US hardliners reject it.
A previous article discussed Pentagon lies about civilian casualties in Syria, hugely downplaying the human toll, falsely claiming only 1,139 civilians were “unintentionally” killed by the US and its imperial partners – a colossal Big Lie.
The rape and destruction of Mosul, Iraq (October 2016 – July 2017) and Raqqa, Syria (June – October 2017) alone, turning both cities to rubble, were responsible for tens of thousands of civilians massacred in each city.
Gideon Polya’s global body count on “avoidable deaths, deaths that should not have happened, excess mortality, and avoidable mortality” estimates over 30 million Muslim deaths from US-led War (OF) Terror in the Middle East, Central Asia, North Africa, and elsewhere since US-initiated Security Council genocidal sanctions on Iraq (August 1990 – May 2003) and 1991 Gulf War, followed by endless aggression still ongoing with no end of it in prospect.
Separately according to the ACLU, the Trump regime may roll back “anti-discrimination rules in education, housing, and other areas,” part of its disdain for ordinary people.
His regime also stopped responding to complaints by UN human rights investigators - on poverty, migration, speech and media freedoms, along with equity and justice issues, including Central American family separations along the US/Mexican border.
Responses stopped last May, over a dozen requests unanswered. Nor have UN monitors been permitted to investigate human rights abuses since Trump’s inauguration - except for two special rapporteurs on extreme poverty and privacy OK’d by Obama before leaving office.
US prisons and Guantanamo are strictly off-limits to human rights investigators. According to the ACLU’s human rights program director Jamil Dakwar, the Trump regime is “sending a very dangerous message to other countries: that if you don’t cooperate with UN experts they will just go away.”
“That’s a serious setback to the system created after World War II to ensure that domestic human rights violations could no longer be seen as an internal matter.”
The Trump regime abandoned international treaties - including the JCPOA and INF Treaty, along with flagrantly breaching the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
It pulled out of UNESCO and the UN Human Rights Council. Its agenda fosters inequality at home and abroad, poverty in America increasing on its watch.
UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Philip Alston called poverty and inequality in America greatest among Western countries.
He slammed Trump regime policies, “overwhelmingly benefit(ting) the wealthy,” stigmatizing and punishing low-income and impoverished Americans.
The ACLU’s Jennifer Turner slammed the US for disenfranchising millions of its citizens for largely nonviolent felony convictions, mostly affecting the nation’s poor.
America is far and away the world’s most egregious human rights abuser globally.
According to Alston, “the US has always tried to press other countries to be accountable,” ignoring its own abuses, “send(ing) a message that you can opt out of routine scrutiny if you don’t like what is being said about your record on human rights.”
UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants Felipe Gonzalez Morales was stonewalled by the State Department, following his request to inspect how Central American refugees and asylum seekers are being treated along the US/Mexican border.
Trump’s immigration order blocked their legal rights as refugees and asylum seekers, affecting people of the wrong race, ethnicity and/or religion - unwelcome in America on his watch.
His policy is unrelated to protecting national security. It’s all about racial hatred toward unwanted people, along with serving privileged interests and advancing Washington’s imperium.
His permanent war agenda is all about smashing other nations to control them. America’s deplorable state heads toward tyrannical rule and greater wars than already. The nation I grew up in no longer exists.
VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
